As search becomes increasingly dominated by AI abstracts and commercial content, people are experimenting and finding ways to make the web feel more human like it used to, creating everything from “miniweb” search engines to decentralized social networks.
One of the newest efforts in this direction is Wander Consolean open source, self-hosted web console that gives website visitors a way to explore other interesting websites and websites recommended by a community of independent website owners.
Susam Pal, the project’s London-based developer, says he was inspired to build the small, decentralized tool after seeing Kagi’s “small web” search tool which limits searches to specific types of content, such as blogs, webcomics, and YouTube channels.
But this still won’t display the kind of small sites maintained by indie developers like Pal itself, nor web projects, mini-apps, or games. This led Pal to create Wander, which puts website recommendations back into the hands of users.
“Not everyone knows about this beautiful part of the Internet, which is weird, where we have all kinds of weird websites, where people express their personalities and so on,” he said.
Wander has its roots in older ideas such as grids which once linked independent websites and blogs or website discovery tools like StumbleUponwhich offered great suggestions as you clicked “Stumble!” button to discover new sites. It also has elements of blogrollsas website owners can recommend other websites.
To use Wander, you simply upload two files to your site: a index.html file that points to the Wander console and a wander.js (a simple JavaScript file) that you use to connect to other Wander consoles that you recommend. There’s no server-side code or database, and the console can even be hosted on GitHub Pages or Codeberg Pages, Pal said.
After uploading, you can add a “Wander” link to your site that allows visitors to go to the discovery experience. (For example, here’s Pal’s Wander console demo.)
The console has a “Wander” button at the top of the page that you can click to load a random website. You can also click the Console button to see information about that person’s Wander setup, including a list of other people’s recommended Wander consoles. Wander calls these proposed consoles “Neighbors.”
Some of these Wander consoles are pretty clever and funny. A guy named Josh has built a Wander console which recommends all other sites created by people named Josh. Someone else has customized their console to turn the cursor into a small creature; other takes you to various pages in Neocitiesa web hosting platform focused on bringing back the creativity of the web, like what we found at Geocities (hence the name). Many others have changed the pluslargeor plan of their console to match their own site or give it one nostalgic look.
Pal said it’s easy to customize the console using CSS or JavaScript without changing the original Wander console. (If you don’t know how, you can probably get AI to help you with this part.) That way, when Wander ships a new version, that part of the file can be updated with a simple copy and paste.
Pal presented the project at Hacker News Community this spring, and most recently shared it on Reddit and elsewherereceiving tons of positive feedback and support. Since those early introductions, the Wander has been adopted by over 60 people who now use it to recommend more than 1,500 websites in total.
“I don’t think everyone needs to know about the microweb—some people use the web as a utility, and I think it’s very good for them. But people who are creative, they might want to learn about the microweb,” Pal explained.
He said that many Internet users seem to miss StumbleUpon and think of it with a sense of nostalgia. “It’s the element of surprise – you never know what you’re going to find when you click the button,” he added.
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